Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: The Spirit of a Hero
by Axehandle
Summary: The Order, a mysterious group of Pokemon, killed a hero in the past to achieve world dominance. In the future, a group of seven are 'chosen' to find the Time Gears and 'right' the past. With this task, they set out, avoiding capture and execution.
1. Pride On A Cliff

_In one way or another, conflict has existed throughout most of human history._

_Wars, brutal and primitive, decided not who was right, but only who was left. The last nation standing, banner in tow, would gain access to their enemies' spoils, and live like kings, until the cycle was repeated with their own country. No people were safe – war never changed. One tribe instigated a battle, and only one tribe was allowed to finish it._

…

_But, in the future, Pokemon had decided that they were no longer going to be used as tools of war. They rose up, revolted, and destroyed their old masters, forming lands and tribes of their own._

_They all came to a consensus, that no matter what, they would avoid war. But as with man, they felt they were entitled to everything. And as one Pokemon took something another desired, so began conflict._

_In one way or another, conflict will exist forever, throughout the history of all sapient life._

_To combat the pettiness of war, Pokemon formed a _**camaraderie **_among themselves, to ensure that no one tribe was above another. They were successful, for a time, as they were few in number. But as population spread, resources became thin, and individuals wanted to spread their influence to the rest of the world._

_So began the practice of _**Towns **_or municipalities, meant to connect a community under a single leader, a _**Guildmaster**, _who would support the town financially and politically. Then there came the question of how the supply the town; a single Guildmaster could not provide enough resources to keep the town stable. Thus was the formation of _**Exploration Teams**, _who would serve under the Guildmaster and provide labor and scavenging services, as a communal work force._

…

_Then came the integration of other services into the work force. They soon became police as well, forming _**Rescue Teams **_to aid in the governing and search and rescue of lost locals. Some teams abandoned their Guildmasters, forming small communities elsewhere. Others overthrew their leadership, turning their area into a police-state. The most renowned of these teams, of both varieties, came together to form a single entity – the Institute of Coordinated Brigades. The ICB issued licenses to those deemed worthy of leading teams of several, either under independent or governed rule, to hunt for resources and aid in the recruitment and assistance of lost Pokemon._

…

_Until, that is, the Top Weapon and the Time Gears were discovered._

_We are here, in the present time. You, our audience, will have the ability henceforth to change time as you please, in the 'directions' of past and future._

_Our mission is the find the Top Weapon, the Frontier Cube. We don't know what it does. We don't know what it looks like. We don't know how it works._

_But we know that we, the People, need it._

_Join us, Adventurer, and relieve us of our struggle._

1_ Pride Over a Cliff_

_**In the distant past...**_

A Charizard stood, bulky and scaly, facing a scenic overlook. His tinted eyes scanned the mountains he had flown over for years, the small villages that were cropped between crevices and rock formations.

"I guess this is it," he said to the Pokémon behind him, his small arms laced over his tanned belly.

"Yep," the other Pokemon replied casually. The Charizard heard the sound of air being bent with a sharp object. _Whoosh._

"You're going to behead me?" the Charizard inquired with an amused smirk, his flames growing larger on his tail.

"Quite," the other Pokemon quipped. This was a very awkward conversation. Then, the Charizard spun on his heel to face his executioner.

"The sky is bright and blue outside, the mountains are well and brown, and the people are all fed and satisfied. My influence stretches throughout the entire world. I am a political face that unites all species to a common cause. Through trials and tribulations, _I alone _caused world peace. And now you want to kill me?"

"Precisely," the other Pokemon, an Alakazam, responded. "You have outlived your usefulness. Not to say that you are now useless. It is, ah, complicated." He wore clothes, a suit, fashioned to fit his proportions. It looked sloppy, tight, and clumsy, but he donned it with pride. "Please understand, Caesar."

"Stop calling me that," Caesar said. "It's in the past. I conquered, but for the right cause."

"And now that you've stopped conquering, you pose a threat to us. There is a 13.4563324 percent chance that you will instigate a revolt against us."

"I may not do so directly, but I run this world. And for your clan to challenge me is an insult. I would not even _spit _on the ground you walk upon."

"Your blood will stain it, though." The Alakazam's eyes began radiating very pink, very lethal energy.

"I would remark something snappy and cool like, 'try me' or 'come at me bro', but I can't. But I believe my achievements can speak for themselves. This will be the worst thing you've ever done. The peace the world shares will snap, and our equilibrium will vanish. War, famine, genocide... all for the sake of some post-human technology."

"Precisely," the Alakazam replied, whisking his sword around. It was very rusty, with black, corroded metal, concentrated near the tip. It looked painful.

"If I choose to fight you, hypothetically... what would happen?"

"We would accelerate our search for the Sky Engine."

"At the cost of the lives of thousands?"

"Millions if need be."

"You're an independent agent. You can make your own decisions."

"And my decision is this." Caesar looked at the Pokemon with sad, pleading eyes. The Alakazam stared back with cold, calculating ones. "Your chance of winning, with my weapon in active use, is around 57 percent. You can attempt to fight back. You may or may not win. Probability is on your side."

"Very well. I will not fight. But I will die on my own terms." Caesar knelt down, extending his long neck to the sword. "I have but a few final words. You may attack the spirit of adventure, but the soul of a true hero will never die. You will be stopped. The Time Gears – or whatever – are not yours for the taking. Do not think for a second that just because you managed to get the Hero of the New World to submit, you will do the same for the Laeti. They will overpower you and your Order. And you will be left with nothing."

"Brave words for a dying man. Are you ready to accept your fate?"

"It would take more than a single sword to force me to accept my fate. I live on, in spirit, in the young who will take up arms against you and your colleagues. The new force, the army that will bring your destruction, the _Legion_, will carry my banner on their shoulders and see to your death as among the first."

"I did not ask for a speech. And what Exploration Team could take me?"

"We're past petty Rescue and Exploration Teams. We're a full army."

"You talk as if you're there."

"I will be, once you strike that sword through my neck. Now do it with precision and vigor, to sign away your life with mine!"

"Very well, Caesar. Despite what Red said, you were never a true rival to me."

"I barely knew you back then. Red is dead and gone, too. I assume by your hand?"

"He was a true Guildmaster." With that, the blade came crashing down with a crunch. Ultimately, it took four blows to decapitate the dinosaur, but when the job was done, the Alakazam took the head in a hand and looked out over the cliff.

"Fear is the body's way of letting you know you're too weak to face life," he said wistfully, "but arrogance is the body's way of letting you know you're headed toward an early death. To think that one Pokemon, who single-handedly united the world, would display so much of the latter... Sickening."


	2. Tribal Dissonance

_Okay, Adventurer. Let's pretend that last chapter never happened. This is the problem with telling a tale involving time travel, things are always changing. Caesar has a funny story about himself – there are 1,230,427 versions of how he united the world. Guess how many involved time travel?_

xxx-xxx

Liking the sound of his own voice, a Haxorus descended grass steps with a sort of refined elegance that was both obscenely loud and intimately quiet. He carried himself with the kind of likeness expected from a true royal, one who commanded subjects from the comfort and mercy of a distant throne. Instead, he was head of a tribe of villagers whose only purpose was to exist, to breed, and to die off. It seemed like he understood their fate, and pissed away what little resources they had left to themselves.

"Ouvero II," the Haxorus shouted from atop the final step, his Chieftain's hut at their apex. From the crowd of a dozen or so 'Mons, a single Axew stepped forward. His face was tightened with a strange solidarity, attempting to be serious but blatantly reflecting his fear. "You are to be initiated into the Tribe of Seven Scrolls."

"Yes, sir!"Ouvero replied with gusto, dipping his head in respect. In truth, he was an immigrant from the distant Pikkunen, orphaned on the nation's archipelago when he could not be cared for any longer. He ended up on Kami Lo'kaha, the North House, as the locals called it. The Chief had taken him in as an outsider, a _ka'joku_, but this was the time he would be able to prove himself as a citizen in their small society. _Finally._

"Are you ready? Boys often show barely restrained fear when they hear the _Manu Omaki'mo_."

"The... One Succession, sir?"

"Yes." The Haxorus glared down with a paternal look, his face locked on Ouvero's. "You are not one of us. I got my name from my community – Po'paja."

"That refers to the scales of any reptile, derived from the Pikkunenese _popajama_, consisting of the root _po_, referring to the letter _peme_, which looks like a reptile with a tail, and –"

"I don't care for its etymology! I'm saying, _my family _gave me that name, and yet you can come from... where did you come from?"

"Mainland Pikkunen. Sir." Ouvero suppressed a sigh, wishing Po'paja would pay more attention to him. "I'm sorry. I read books from the Coast and I get carried away."

"We expect you to have babies here," Po'paja said explicitly. "You haven't evolved and you've been of age for the past decade or so."

"Well, I've already told everyone that I was gay, didn't I?" Ouvero blinked, and then added a hasty, "sir!", to refine his sentence.

"Doesn't matter. Babies are babies, _ahaju oko_. We have to keep things going, you know."

"Yes, sir, of course. But there are other able-bodied males around the camp. If all else fails, sir, we can go to the Coast and just... y'know..." Ouvero hated that he was called _ahaju oko_, which translated literally as "little object" or "little thing". He was gonna show them all, wasn't he?

"_No_! Never. I'll let O'loka consume my eternal soul before I go back to the Coast. Are you ready for your initiation?"

"Yes," Ouvero replied more casually, less confident in his ability to perform. Po'paja moved down to the small Axew and brought over a small assortment of Dragon-types to assist him. He took a bowl shaped from clay and put it to Ouvero's mouth. When the Axew resisted, the other Dragon-types held him down and forcefully opened his mouth. He attempted to relax a bit and comply, but he was beginning to panic and couldn't form a plan for what was going to happen next.

"_Oma u'keki, ahaju manu. U'apo kulemo._" And so, he was still, and he would hold Po'paja to his promise: it would be over soon. It was some kind of wine, he knew; maybe Pecha or perhaps Oran. It had a very tangy, familiar taste, but nothing very distinguishable. His thoughts soon melted into each other as he was fed bowl after bowl...

Ouvero was herded to the fringe of a forest, nothing lit save for the moon in the darkened sky. He was too drunk to really be able to tell if anything was alive inside, though he had a pretty good idea that something was waiting to prey on him. Po'paja waited with his little arms crossed.

"Go in there and find something that you feel describes you," he commanded, and began walking away.

"Ah-wait... you mean I'm gonna... go in there, and... ? Hold on? Wait, no... That's a _forest_. There's trees in a forest." As Ouvero attempted to stand from his sitting position, he found he was leaning backward, and fell on his back. _Put together a damn sentence! _"I mean... there's, like, danger."

"If you want to be one of us, you have to suffer like one of us. Come get me if you come out at all. If you find nothing, keep looking." With that, the Haxorus sprinted away on strong, tall legs.

Ouvero was on his own. He stood, with some trouble, and staggered into the range of a few trees, and then promptly emptied the contents of his stomach. He felt very bloated and incoherent... uncoordinated. After minutes of vomiting, he continued on, feeling a bit better. A tipsy blur fogged his vision and his environment blended in on itself as he trekked through trenches and fallen branches.

It had to be very late in the night, because as he found a small beach just outside the range of the forest, he could see the Coast; his true home. Lights of civilization brightened his spirit as he sat down, staring across the sea at paradise lost. Too bad he couldn't bring _that _with him. Then he could be the biggest man in the whole damn village!

Po'paja didn't appreciate those who didn't take up the sword. He considered Ouvero effeminate and camp, because he appreciated the 'male figure'. But to be truthful, without the ad hominem, Ouvero _was _very boring. He was just a little shut-in who liked books like he would love a spouse. But there are scholars in every society, right? He was thinking of developed nations, like Pikkunen and Del Aires. But not here. This island was just the bastard child of Pikkunen's exploration of its archipelago. Those it left behind corrupted its language and spun it on its head.

"What am I supposed to do now...?" he asked pitifully, too drunk to think but not drunk enough to just sleep his problems away. He went to the water and splashed around in it a little bit, trying to clear his mind. He was floating on his back, staring up at the moon with saddened eyes. "I can't do this. I said I was ready, but what do I bring back? … This is no way to talk. I should be looking for something. Something … something to describe me." He trailed off as he turned his head, and he saw a Charmeleon rowing a boat toward the mainland.

"Oh, crap! H-Hey! Wait! Wait!" He waved his stubby arms to get his attention, and it seemed like he would be ignored. Lyrics came to mind for some reason; _being on an elevator when someone shouts, 'hey wait, hold the door!' Screw you lady, that's what stairs are for! _Hopefully his new lizard friend would be less inclined to Schadenfreude.

The boat glided to a slow halt in the water, and Ouvero managed to swim out to it, bobbing and coasting along with the tide of the water. "Thanks for waiting. Where ya headed? To Pikkunen?"

"Buddy," the Charmeleon said in a silky, boyish voice, "I'm on a journey through time. Wanna come along?"

"Uh … okay? It beats hanging here." He climbed aboard the small sea ferry, and just like that, he had a new friend. "I'll ask about things later, but I _do _need to know some basic things. Being out at sea, even for such a short time, is not comfortable with a stranger. What's your name?"

"Nero," the fire lizard replied with that same voice. Ooh! It just set Ouvero off even more.

"Okay, Nero. Where are you from?"

"A Legion in the future. Everyone I know is dead and I was sent by a physical god of time to right the past. You?"

"Er … from Pikkunen. Well, originally."

"You are homosexual," Nero observed. "You know three languages. You also have no living blood family."

"Way to go," Ouvero commented, sighing heavily. "How did you – "

"I met you in the future, Ouvero. Trust me, let me explain when I get the chance. For now, I need to see Pikkunen's leader and tell him what to do."

"Dear God … this is gonna be a long ride, mm?"


End file.
